Science, Religion and Stem Cells

Published: June 23, 2005

To the Editor:

Mario M. Cuomo's justification for embryonic stem cell research diminishes the status of the unborn human embryo and suggests that only religious belief can determine the beginnings of human life. He is wrong.

A human embryo is an individual member of the human natural kind in the initial stages of development. He or she is genetically human. He or she is physiologically alive, possessing an internal code predestined to grow into an adult. Each of us has our origins in such an embryo. That is a fact of biology, not faith.

As governor, Mr. Cuomo was to be applauded for his insistence that every member of the human family is deserving of basic rights and for his consistent defense of those convicted of heinous crimes, a position grounded in moral convictions and undercut by lack of public consensus.

Unfortunately, he continues to exclude the tiniest human beings from membership in the human family, and now promotes their depersonalization, exploitation and destruction for research purposes.